Megan Henwood; Ben Walker; Dan Wilde; Keith Chesterton; Going, going, but not quite gone; Last chance to order "Wood, Sweat & Tears" before Christmas; Davy Graham's Orsino; two archtop guitars in the making and Xentrix!

Megan Henwood

Here we go with the Christmas edition of the newsletter, I'm starting off with Megan being not very Christmassy at all, and not even playing a guitar. Lovely song though, and Megan’s voice gets better and better. Brother Joe on saxophone adding dark moody riffs to the dark moody setting. Great video. We are really looking forward to her new album, and 2014 may well be Megan’s year. Link to video

This should really be titled "Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker", as that is the name they use, but of course I am focusing on Ben's new fanfret baritone guitar, it's good to hear it at long last. Josienne and Ben are nominated for best newcomer and best duo in the upcoming folk awards - best of luck to them both. Link to video

The second in a series of videos Dan is making at the moment. A non-Christmas song to keep us from being too merry. The amount of talent pouring out of young musicians just now is amazing, and at a time of life when "even the policemen seem young", I always notice the changes in his performance, the added maturity each time I see him.

Dan was originally based in the North West, so I've been tracking him for a while, and when I ask customers which artists they like to listen to, its interesting to note how often Dan's name comes up. Link to video

Keith is my first line of defence against problems with my newsletters; he sends me a report each time, usually within a few minutes of my sending them out. I imagine him sitting in front of his computer 24 hours a day, with a guitar in his hands, just waiting for the next one to arrive.

I am very grateful to him for that, and also for the fairly regular contributions to my YouTube offerings. This time he has his Ariel tuned "Terz Style", a tone and a half up, and with a capo on the fourth fret. Keith does not want to be recognised and mobbed in the street by other Fylde guitar owners, so he doesn't often show his face. Link to Video

Tristan Seume will be recording on the Ullapool guitar in the next few days, so I look forward to that. Where the Ullapool guitar is "pretty", then the Rio Ariel is “beautiful”. Every visitor has pined over it. See more pictures of the Ariel here.

I am still receiving orders for books from all over the world, and we managed to get out all the pre orders over the last weekend. I didn't realise how hard the packaging was going to be, tape dispensers are evil, dangerous things, and cardboard has a disagreeable nature. Bubble wrap is fun though, but I prefer bigger bubbles.

I signed the first 200, and added messages where requested, and it was painful. The opposable thumb was a good step forward in evolution, but a renewable thumb would be even better. After breaking some bones in my right hand recently I find it hard to hold a pen for a long time, and my handwriting was bad to start with, so some of you may have received some strange messages.

My favourite was "very best wiskers for Christmas and the New Year" and someone called Roy Ducknose seems to have signed some of them. Sorry. No idea who he is.

On a related theme, if your name is, say, Bill Jones, do you think perhaps you could start off your email address with something like, well, "BillJones@----"? That really would help a lot. "JonesBill@----" would be ok if you like to like to keep a low profile, but "slartybartfast@------” isn’t exactly helpful if you want me to be able to find you in a list.

There is still time to receive a book before Christmas if you act quickly, it’s perfect for keeping you out of the way while the other half is cooking your dinner. See the book and order it here.

And of course it will available after that as well, in fact I will need to get it reprinted very soon as I have sold more of this book in the last few weeks than I did of the first Fylde book over about four years.

Here are a few (genuine) comments received from those who have bought the book so far:
Superb; Beautiful; Absolutely delighted; A real book - excellent; Insightful and truly absorbing; Fabulous, fascinating; Sumptuous, wow!; Epic achievement; Outstanding piece of work.

Thank you everybody, but I hate this picture, and the bench is never that clean.

Davy Graham's Orsino

One of Davy's two Fyldes was here briefly this week. It has been living in a very damp place for a while and needed some TLC. It's playing well again now though.

Two archtop guitars in the making

Slowly but surely I am turning big chunks of spruce and maple into thin light resonant front and back plates. It's taking a while.

Xentrix

Just to show that I've not always been a puritan.

Take a good look at the guitar that is centre stage most of the time during this clip. Yes, it has a Fylde logo on it. I made it for Chris Astley in about 1985. Chris is the son of Bob Astley, my partner for a time in the early days, and I used to babysit him before he got all those tattoos. He is really quiet when he’s off stage.Link to Video

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New YearRoger Bucknall
Fylde Guitarswww.fyldeguitars.com